The Big Sick: A Movie Review

The Big Sick, a R-rated comedic drama follows the life of Kumail Nanjiani, a stand up comedian from Pakistan, as he struggles to figure out how to stay with the love of his life while also juggling his helicopter mother and perfect older brother.

Kumail has spent the last few months of his life trying to find women whom he can marry. In the Pakistani culture, marriages are arranged by the parents. Every two or three days during dinner, the doorbell will ring, welcoming the maiden that has “dropped in” this week. This all changes when a girl named Emily Gordon (Zoe Kazan) attends one of Nanjiani’s comedy shows, and they end up sitting next to each other at a bar. It all starts as a one-night stand, but they bond and date for a few months. While at Kumail’s apartment, she finds a box full of all the women that are applicants to get married to him. He explains the arranged marriage situation to her and tells her that he has not told his parents about her. Gordon gets very upset and breaks things off with Nanjiani on the spot. Weeks after that, he gets a call in the middle of the night from one of her friends telling her she in in the hospital with a “bad case of the flu.” He rushes to the hospital and the doctor pressures him to sign papers agreeing to let the doctors put Gordon in medically induced coma. The rest of the movie is about how Nanjiani copes with the stress of the situation and always tries to bring out the best in it.

I, myself, had a very high opinion on this movie. It covered a lot of bases while still staying true to what the movie was about. I am also a sucker for a good comedy movie, so I really liked the fact that there were quite a few stand up shows. The only flaw that I would change is the length of the movie. While Judd Apatow (producer) has a little bit of a knack for making longer movies, like Knocked Up and Bridesmaids, they are slightly longer than needed. The movie was incredibly well written, and even in moments of despair, Nanjiani always managed to squeeze in another joke.

The wildest thing about this movie is that is was based off a true story. With a few exceptions, like he was not really an Uber driver, everything was accurate. Everything that happened in the film, happened to Kumail Nanjiani in real life. Emily Gordon, Kumail’s wife off the screen, also went through the same traumatic mystery illness that the character Emily went through in the same way. In 2012, Gordon and Nanjiani decided that they would write this screenplay together, and two years later it was released. Nanjiani says, “You evolve, and the relationship has to evolve too. For me that’s been the big epiphany of being with Emily for the last 11 years. And for us making this movie has been very exciting, but it’s also been a challenge so we’ve had to evolve our relationship to accommodate for it.”

Nanjiani had already had his fair share of screen time. He has been on the show Silicon Valley and movies such as Central Intelligence and Loaded. When asked if she ever thought of portraying herself in the movie, Gordon says, “I’m just not an actress. I would’ve tanked this whole production … and I also think it’s strange to have the two people who went through the event actually reenacting the event, and if you’re going to have someone play you in a movie, let it be Zoe Kazan. That’s my request.” Kanjiani and Kazan are both great actors that really mesh well together in the movie. From Kanjian’s compassion to Gordon’s adventurous taste, they work together well in all aspects.

Amazon spend a total of twelve million dollars in production for The Big Sick. This breezes past the total of ten million that the movie Manchester by the Sea had gotten. In total, The Big Sick made around 51.3 million dollars in the box office. It was also rated an astounding 98% by “Rotten Tomatoes”- a notorious movie reviewing website. This surpassed many hit movies in 2017, such as, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and It.

Overall, The Big Sick is a movie that can make you both laugh and cry at the same time. It shows how such a life-changing experience can bring people together, no matter the circumstances. This comedic drama shows a variety of things, like the struggle of having traditional parents to showing how life could be when your ex-girlfriend is in a coma. This movie is definitely worth watching and deserved the 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you want to watch a movie that that was written from the heart, but also had some comedy in it, take a seat and start watching.